The stewardship of the Deodhee had been entrusted to Misr Bastee Ram, a brahmin, who had served as treasurer to Ranjit Singh’s father, and had continued to serve Ranjit Singh in Lahore. In 1811, he was summarily dismissed and his job was awarded to Jemadar Khushal Singh, a brahmin youth who had served in Ranjit Singh’s army.
According to Sohan Lal Suri, the official keeper of the Durbar records and writer of the Umdat-ut-Tawarikh, Bastee Ram was dismissed ‘because he showed great courage and daring in putting before the Maharaja the requests and petitions of all people’. The implication was that Bastee Ram did not do a very good job of filtering access to the Maharaja and as a result too many people were able to enter his presence, burdening him with matters he did not really need to be concerned with. Other versions suggest that the wily Khushal Singh, once finding Bastee Ram absent from his post, used the opportunity to complain to Ranjit Singh that Bastee Ram was often derelict in his duties and frequently absent, which resulted in his being removed from the plum office.
Henry Thoby Prinsep, a British Civil servant offers a very different explanation for the rise of Khushal Singh.53 Prinsep writes about the sudden elevation of a young brahmin youth named Khushal Singh, upon whom the Maharaja started lavishing expensive gifts and appointed to the very powerful and lucrative office of Deodhidar. Khushal Singh was also granted the title ‘Raja’ and large jagirs or estates were conferred upon him. Prinsep alleges that the Maharaja led a most dissolute and debauched life and indulged in public displays of shamelessness during the festivals of Holi and Dusshera, which rivalled the orgies of ancient Rome! Other British accounts also allege that the monarch would appear drunk, mounted on an elephant in public, accompanied by his favorite Moran in a state of undress.
Princep salaciously suggests that Moran was banished to Pathankot because the Maharaja had transferred his affections from Moran to Khushhal Singh ‘and his brothers’. He draws parallels with ancient Greece and Rome where powerful men were known to indulge themselves by keeping catamites, suggesting that such practices were commonplace in the various courts of Punjab during Ranjit Singh’s time. Such debauchery, in Prinsep’s words, did not seem to tarnish the Maharaja’s reputation in the very least: ‘But the reputation of Runjeet Singh, though justly, it is feared, tainted with the foul blemish, did not suffer in the eyes of his nation from this cause.’
Prinsep wasn’t present in Punjab during the elevation of Jemadar Khushal Singh and his writings are probably based on bazaar gossip or worse. His book was published in 1846, before the Second Anglo-Sikh War, a period of great ferment in Punjab, when the British were actively engaged in trying to annex Punjab after the death of Ranjit Singh. Delegitimising the successors of Ranjit Singh and vilifying him were perhaps part of a strategy to tarnish his legacy and justify the deposition of his heirs as a benign act! After all, wouldn’t the common people of Punjab be better off if the reign of such dissolute monarchs were to end!
Regardless of how Khushal Singh managed to worm his way into a powerful office, it is a matter of record that he enjoyed great power and influence in Ranjit Singh’s court until his eventual fall from grace, largely because of hubris.
When Sahmat Ali arrived in Ranjit Singh’s court, Khushal Singh had already fallen from favour, after managing the Deodhee for twelve years. Sahmat Ali, in his account of Khushal Singh’s fall writes of Misr Diwan Chand being stopped by Khushal Singh and taking offence at it. Misr Diwan Chand was at that time the most celebrated general in Ranjit Singh’s army and in a position of great influence. He decided that Khushal Singh had just become too arrogant and recommended to Ranjit Singh that he be replaced by one of his protégés, a capable young man whose star was in ascendance. This young man was none other than Dhian Singh, who several years earlier, had come to Lahore with his brothers to seek his fortune in Ranjit Singh’s court.
Khushal Singh had clearly locked horns with the wrong man!
Dhian Singh had already caught Ranjit Singh’s eye. According to Prinsep, Ranjit Singh had noticed Dhian Singh in a military parade and then proceeded to appoint him to important positions culminating in his becoming ‘… prime minister, in which capacity he amassed enormous wealth, became master of a large mountainous country in Little Tibet, and on the borders of Cashmere, studded with hill forts, maintaining an army of 25,000 men, and a fine artillery.’
In 1819, Dhian Singh’s older brother, Gulab Singh was sent on an expedition to Jammu and Kishtwar. Pleased with his success, Ranjit Singh granted him Jammu as his jagir, after which Gulab Singh, as Ranjit Singh’s vassal, started expanding his territories north and west of Jammu. Suchet Singh, the youngest brother, also rose in Ranjit Singh’s favour and was rewarded with jagirs as well.
In 1822, Gulab Singh was formally installed as the Raja of Jammu, which gave his heirs the right to succession. It is said that Ranjit Singh anointed Gulab Singh’s forehead with a tilak (a saffron mark of royalty) with his own hands. On the same day, Mian Suchet Singh was awarded the state of Ramnagar and he was also given the title of Raja. When Raja Gulab Singh inquired why Dhian Singh, who by then was already Ranjit Singh’s favourite, had not been similarly honoured, Ranjit Singh said replied that a small kingdom was not reward enough for Mian Dhian Singh. The king intended to make him a Raja-i-Rajagan or a King of Kings.
A formal proclamation was issued by Ranjit Singh, which appears in K.M. Panikkar’s work, Gulab Singh Dogra:
On this auspicious occasion with extreme joy and with heartfelt love, I grant to Raja Gulab Singh, in recognition of his conscientious and loyal service, the government of the Chakla of Jammu, which from time immemorial has been in the possession of his family. He and his brothers Dhyan Singh and Suchet Singh appeared in my court at a very early age and loyally and devotedly served me and the state. Their ancestors also served faithfully for a long time under my father Mahan Singh Ji of happy memory. They spared no pains to render their services to me promptly and submissively and to give me satisfaction. They have always been found faithful to me and loyal to the state. They have shed their blood freely in many campaigns such as the conquest of Kashmir, the reduction of Multan and the punishment of the rebels, in suppression of rebellion on the frontier and the fight with the forces of Kabul. In consideration of these and other services I grant the government of the Chakla of Jammu to Rajah Gulab Singh and his descendants, and I myself mark the forehead of this loyal and devoted servant of mine with the emblem of sovereignty. With great pleasure I also grant Rajah Suchet Singh the government of Ramnagar to be his own and his descendants’ as a reward for the great services he has rendered to me. He and his descendants may dispose of its income on their own account provided the Rajahs be loyal to the state henceforward as they have been till now that they receive our descendants with no less honor and submission and that their descendants be as loyal to us and our descendants. In witness of this I grant this Purwana (proclamation) of mine with my own hands together with a bunch of saffron.
Dated 4th Ashad, 1879 (Vikram)
The Dogra brothers were sitting pretty. At thirty, Gulab Singh, who had started with nothing more than a noble lineage and pluck was now the king of a rich state. The twenty-seven year old Dhian Singh held the Deodhee, an influential position that made him one of Ranjit Singh’s top advisors. The twenty-one year old Suchet Singh, too, was named a king in his own right.
Gulab Singh started to focus more and more on governing his expanding territories and was seldom seen at court, entrusting his younger brothers with keeping the family in good standing, while he further consolidated his hold on his kingdom.
In the year 1828, on the festival of the Vaisakhi, Mian Dhian Singh received the title of Raja of Bhimber, which had been seized from Sultan Khan. The ceremony was performed with great pomp and the title of Raja-i-Rajagan was formally attached to his name. Ranjit Singh directed the officers of his court to present nazars (tribute) to Raja Dhian Singh and named him his minister. Sensitive to the humble origins of his protégé, he declared
that if anyone had the temerity to address Dhian Singh as ‘Mian’, which means petty chief, he would be fined 1000 rupees and might even lose his nose and ears for the infraction!
In a few short years, the Dogra brothers had become the most powerful noblemen in the court of Ranjit Singh. Prinsep, however, claims that the illiterate Dogra brothers were unfit for high office and alleges that their elevation was the result of an illicit relationship between the Maharaja and the very handsome Dhian Singh Dogra!
The Dogra brothers loomed large and stood out even in the pomp and circumstance of Ranjit Singh’s court. Many visitors have remarked on the splendour of the court, adorned by gallant Sardars always impeccably turned out in the finest clothes, arms and armour. Ranjit Singh had a tendency to surround himself with handsome men and beautiful women, but none of the men were as swashbuckling as the Dogras.
In 1847, Major George Carmichael Smyth published a work which includes very detailed potraits of the Dogra brothers drawn from conversations with people who, Smyth claims, knew the Dogras intimately.54
It is likely that his anonymous source of information was Colonel Alexander Gardner, who, after the fall of the Sikh Empire, served in the court of Raja Gulab Singh Dogra for many years. There is no other European who would have had such a close opportunity to observe the Dogra brothers, Gulab Singh in particular.
According to Carmichael Smyth, Gulab Singh Dogra was a cruel, ambitious and avaricious man who was willing to go to any lengths to achieve his end goals. He would often indulge in extreme cruelty, not in the heat of battle, but as a deliberate tactic to strike fear into the hearts of his adversaries and to completely break their spirit. Despite this, he could be courteous and polite in demeanour and exhibited a suavity of manner and language that sharply contrasted fearfully with his real disposition. He had a particular talent to appear to be ‘all things to all men’, and had the ability to masterfully adapt to any changing situations.
He was addicted to opium and given to sleeping very little and keeping irregular hours. He was a hypocrite who could easily pretend to show great solicitousness to the very people he was exploiting or harming. In a society where charity towards brahmins was very much the norm, Carmichael Smyth claims that Gulab Singh Dogra essentially used brahmins as revenue collectors, compelling them to kick back most of the alms they received to him!
While vilifying him so, Carmichael Smyth expresses grudging admiration for Gulab Singh Dogra’s military skills, calling him ‘an able, active, bold, energetic yet wise and prudent commander’ who was anything but strong-headed and hot blooded and who was far more sanguine in his use of his men and rescources when compared to other military commanders.
The picture that emerges from this description of Gulab Singh Dogra is that of a brave but hard man, relentless in his pursuit of wealth and power, possessed perhaps of the qualities that a king needed to rule effectively in the harsh times that he lived in.
Carmichael Smyth presents Raja Dhian Singh Dogra as an affable and energetic man who showed great personal courage in battle. He was adept in the use of many different weapons and was known to posess great physical endurance and stamina. He could be very dogged and determined but yet could be very flexible when the occasion demanded. He was scrupulously polite to all, regardless of their wealth and station. He was somewhat taciturn though he could be extremely witty and even sarcastic at times. He was a very practical man, impatient of delays and long-winded explanations and always focused on the task at hand.
His personal morals were unimpeachable; Carmichael Smyth calls him ‘an enemy to the sensualist; libertine or debauchee and of regular and moderate habits himself’. In matters of faith, Carmichael Smyth calls him a ‘Deist’ who, outwardly following the rules of his faith and caste, was always suspicious of ‘brahminical deception’, unwilling to believe in astrologers and soothsayers. He was more educated than his brothers; he could read and write in his native Dogri and had taught himself Persian.
Despite all his positive qualities, Carmichael Smyth characterises him as being very ambitious, claiming that ‘the good traits in his character seemed to be a well-worn cloak, to screen a Machiavellian spirit and ruthless disposition.’ He had a great willingness to sacrifice anything for self-aggrandisement.
The account of Dhian Singh’s character is one of the most admiring that I have ever read of a powerful ‘native’ by an Englishman. Even though the common prejudices of the time surface in the account, the portrait that emerges is that of a highly polished and nuanced personality. He was certainly a man of great ambition, as his actions after the demise of Ranjit Singh would amply show, but Raja Dhian Singh was one courtier who almost every visitor wrote about with great admiration.
Suchet Singh, the youngest Dogra brother, receives a fairly unflattering portrait. He is portrayed as a dandy who conducted himself like a macho man. Outwardly polite and courtly, he was a bit of a bully at court. Brave and reckless, he would put himself in harm’s way in a perpetual quest for personal glory and though he was a Raja, he knew ‘better how to fight than to command; a capital soldier but no officer; utterly careless of life; wild, furious, proud, fiery and impatient in the midst of slaughter’. His personal morals were highly suspect and he would have numerous affairs, often with women married to other courtiers or officers.
Other observes too have characterised Suchet Singh Dogra as a singularly handsome man and the finest looking of Ranjit Singh’s courtiers. He was renowned in equal parts for his valour and rashness in battle. But compared to his two brothers, he was clearly a lightweight.
In May 1838, the Political Secretary to the British Governor General of India, William Macnaghten, led a mission to Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s court. His party included Captain W.G. Osborne, Military Secretary to the Governor General, who provides an account of the visit in his book, The Court and Camp of Ranjit Singh.55
Osborne describes the Maharaja as a simply dressed man wearing white and sitting cross-legged in a gilded chair. Unlike most monarchs, he did not have many jewels on his person; just a string of pearls around his waist and the dazzling Kohinoor on his arm, whose brilliance, according to Osborne, was rivalled by the Maharaja’s one eye, which wandered restlessly. While the Maharaja sat in a chair, the rest of the courtiers sat on the floor, with the exception of Raja Dhian Singh Dogra, who stood behind his master. Osborne observes that while Ranjit Singh himself was a rather plain-looking man, his courtiers were fine-looking men, more so than he had seen in any court, European or Indian!
Like many other visitors before him, Osborne was very impressed by the carriage and personality of Dhian Singh Dogra:
Rajah Dheean Sing is a noble specimen of the human race; rather above the usual height of natives, with a quick and intelligent eye, high handsome forehead, and acquiline features, dressed in a magnificent helmet and cuirass of polished steel, embossed with gold, a present from King Louis Philippe of France, he looked a model of manly beauty and intelligence.
Osborne guessed that Raja Dhian Singh Dogra was about thirty and characterised him as gentlemanly, highly intelligent and possessing great influence at court. He even suggested that Dhian Singh Dogra might be a worthy successor to Ranjit Singh in the future, being possessed of greater talent, virtue and wealth than all the other courtiers. Osborne, however, bemoaned the fact that Dhian Singh Dogra was ‘cold and repulsive to Europeans, whom he both fears and hates’ and feared that he constantly tried to influence the Maharaja against the British.
There are several interesting things about the above account; first of all, Dhian Singh Dogra was close to forty and not thirty at the time. It is telling that even while Ranjit Singh was alive, a British officer was speculating on the possibility of his Prime Minister being a suitable candidate for the throne of Punjab, while Kunwar Kharak Singh, Kunwar Sher Singh and several other princes were still hale and hearty! This was clearly a foreshadowing of the great troubles that lay ahead when the monarch passed away. If the British had a sense that the
succession was not going to be smooth after Ranjit Singh, his court, with all of its inherent interests and intrigues, must have been doubly aware and apprehensive.
At this point, it is important to introduce yet another character who was to play a significant role in the events to follow.
Sixteen years before Osborne’s visit to Ranjit Singh’s court, a son was born to Dhian Singh Dogra. The boy was named Hira Singh. As Dhian Singh Dogra’s prominence grew, his young son accompanied him to court and quickly became the Maharaja’s favourite. Ranjit Singh called him his farzand-i-khas-ul-khas (most special son) and doted upon him. Hira Singh was allowed to sit in a chair in Ranjit Singh’s presence, as were Kunwar Sher Singh and Kunwar Kharak Singh; all the courtiers sat on the floor and Raja Dhian Singh, Hira Singh’s father, stood behind the king!
Osborne presents Hira Singh Dogra, a lad of sixteen at the time of his visit, as a greater favourite of the Maharaja than any of the other chiefs, even his father Dhian Singh Dogra. His influence on Ranjit Singh is described as extraordinary and once again attributed to the fondness that the British claim that he had for young boys! Hira Singh was the only one at court who had the temerity to speak to the Maharaja without being spoken to first, and was even known to interrupt him most rudely. Osborne describes the lad as ‘strikingly handsome, though rather effeminate in appearance, magnificently dressed, and almost entirely covered from the waist upwards with strings of pearls, diamonds, emeralds and rubies’. He was also the only courtier who had taken a fancy to the English language and spent several hours each day studying it.
Osborne describes an episode that showed him the extent to which the Maharaja was willing to indulge Hira Singh. During his visit, the annual tribute had just arrived from Kashmir. In addition to cash, the tribute included shawls, weapons and jewellery valued at more than thirty thousand rupees, an enormous sum of money in those times. Hira Singh Dogra, without the slightest hesitation addressed the Maharaja and said ‘Your Highness cannot require all these things; let me have them.’ The Maharaja’s answer: ‘You may take them!’
The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia Page 13
